Recognize this man?

His son favors him. When his son was younger he was called Bill. The American public knows the Colonel's son as William Henry McRaven.

This is a military family. William McRaven walked in the shadow of his father and become an officer in the USA military. Military families are the backbone of this country. The McRaven family don't put themselves first, they put the security of their country first.

It is so difficult to thank these families enough. We provide metals for their military members bravery. William McRaven received many metals including Defense Distinguished Service Medal three times, the Defense Superior Service Medal two times, Legion of Merit Medal two times and Bronze Star Medal two times.

William McRaven has been a great American. He never wavered and always loved the country he served. By every measure, the USA has a great man that protected this country. 

I appreciate him and his father and his mother and siblings and wife and children that shared him all these many years. The USA has a debt to these families and they are never to be defamed or blamed for the inadequacies of a pathetic president. 

When William McRaven comes forward to criticise the President of the USA about a flaw in the way he talks about the media of this country, that President needs to pay attention to a man that is a member of a family that guaranteed in the year 2016 there was a country Mr. Trump could run as a political candidate and win. The McRaven family has insured the status of this country. There are no words that can touch their love of this country.

President Trump will never apologize to Admiral McRaven, but, I will. I apologize to him for a President that does not appreciate the country or the military or the families dedicated to the defense of the country. President Trump doesn't have the character or dignity or bravery Admiral McRaven has born within his character.

I thank Admiral McRaven for his incredible service and finally bringing a dangerous terrorist leader to his end and a final justice to the people of the USA. This country will always be grateful and the act by Admiral McRaven to defend the USA media will never be forgotten. Unfortunately, the USA media has no medal to provide to Admiral McRaven at least that I know of. Someone had to set the record straight and his impression on this issue cannot be understated. I expect to hear from him anytime he feels compelled to further defend this country beyond the service he provided all those years.

Thank you.

Colonel Claude C. "Mac" McRaven (click here), 89, of San Antonio, Texas, passed away on Sunday, May 13, 2007. Mac, the son of Dr. and Mrs. Claude McRaven, was born in E. St. Louis, III and raised in Portageville, MO., along with his sister, Corrine and brother Al. In high school he lettered in track, baseball, basketball and football and became a hometown legend. Football, however, was his passion and it wasn't long before college scouts recognized his talent. Mac received a scholarship to Murray State Teachers College in Kentucky where he broke school records in running and receiving and was nicknamed "Sea Biscuit" after the famous race horse. After college Bullet Bill McRaven was signed to a "lucrative" deal with the Cleveland Rams. He made $100 a game. To supplement this whopping income, he did Wheaties commercials, taught tennis, and was known to win a hand or two of poker. When World War II broke out, Mac and five of his football buddies drove to California and signed up with the Army Air Corps. He was sent to flight training at Brooke Field, San Antonio where he graduated in Flying Class 42 A. Shortly after graduation Mac was assigned to the 31st Pursuit Group in England where he flew British Spitfires in support of cross channel bomber missions. He also saw combat in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. His decorations included the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with 12 Oak Leaf Clusters, and four European Campaign medals. Following the war, Mac was stationed in Victoria, Texas where on a blind date he met and eventually married Anna Elizabeth Long, from Grapeland, Texas. They had three children; Marianna, Nan and Bill, Anna and Mac were married 40 years, traveled the world and lived a very exciting life. Mac served in Formosa, France, and several stateside assignment eventually retiring in 1967 from Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, the city in which his career had begun 26 years earlier. Mac worked a brief time for the San Antonio's Model Cities Program and then became the City's Labor Relations Negotiator. A cool hand under pressure, Mac was known for his ability to negotiate firmly and fairly with the local Police and Firefighters. After a particularly contentious round of negotiations, a union official was heard to comment. "I wouldn't want to play cards with Mac. He's got too good a poker face."...

Published in Express-News from May 16 to May 17, 2007is 

God had forgotten Alabama, that changed today.

November 13, 2018
By Kyle Whitmire

...Charges include multiple violations of Alabama’s Ethics Act, (click here) including soliciting a thing of value from a principal, lobbyist or subordinate, and receiving money in addition that received in one’s official capacity, according to the Alabama Ethics Commission.

Before being appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as the Region 4 administrator of the EPA, Trey Glenn worked closely with the Birmingham-based law firm Balch & Bingham and one of its clients, Drummond Co., to fight EPA efforts to test and clean up neighborhoods in north Birmingham and Tarrant....

November 13, 2018
By John Archibald

Scott Phillips, a former member of the Alabama Environmental Management Commission, and EPA regional administrator Trey Glenn were indicted by an Alabama grand jury. 

This is an opinion column. (click here)

I’m feeling like Fred G. Sanford right now.

This is the big one. I’m coming Elizabeth.

Shocked. Toxic shocked, even.

Because a Jefferson County grand jury took up where the feds left off. Because the quest to hold the powerful to account continues one more time in the saga surrounding polluted north Birmingham. Because Trey Glenn, the head of the EPA for the Southeast region and a shill for polluters from way back, was just charged with crimes for his role in the toxic north Birmingham bribery scandal.

And Scott Phillips, a former member of the Alabama Environmental Management Commission who took a contract from Balch & Bingham to help discourage cleanup of north Birmingham and prevent EPA expansion into Tarrant, was charged on the same day for related crimes.

Great googly moogly!

Can this be happening? Really? Charges against powerful Alabamians who admittedly worked to protect the interests of powerful friends while demeaning low-income residents who must live and die with their choices?...

I don't know what saint decided to take the people of Alabama under his wing, but, this is the best news the people will embrace as a promise of a new form of real justice and change of their circumstances. I hope this saintly conduct continues and spreads through the entire southeast.

THANK YOU!

She can say good-bye to future political ambitions. This is not going away.

November 19, 2018
By Carol D. Leonnig and Josh Dawsey

Washington – Ivanka Trump (click here) sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of federal records rules, according to people familiar with a White House examination of her correspondence.

White House ethics officials learned of Trump’s repeated use of personal email when reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies to respond to a public records lawsuit. That review revealed that throughout much of 2017, she often discussed or relayed official White House business using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner....

Trump, Jr. may not be the only family member that assisted Donald Trump and his campaign with Russian meetings. Ivanka introduced Cohen who later declined the invitation to meet Putin.

6 June 2018
By Tucker Higgins

Ivanka Trump (click here) connected President Donald Trump's embattled lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to a Russian weightlifter in 2015 who said he could introduce Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a Buzzfeed News report that cites four sources.

Ivanka Trump is the president's elder daughter and an advisor in the White House.

Champion heavyweight weightlifter Dmitry Klokov reportedly offered to set up the meeting to help facilitate the construction of the 100-story Trump World Tower Moscow, according to the report. Cohen, who reportedly exchanged at least two emails and one phone call with the athlete, declined the assistance, according to Buzzfeed.

Cohen is currently being investigated by federal prosecutors in New York....

This isn't the first time Ivanka used emails for government business. Perhaps it was hidden from view because of all the hub-bub about tax reform. Both episodes need to be investigated.

November 2, 2017
By Nina Burleigh

As Republicans unveiled their tax reform plan Thursday, (click here) Newsweek learned that months after Ivanka Trump took an official White House position, she was still using a private email account to communicate with the U.S. Treasury Department, discussing national economic programs, her meetings with global leaders and the child care tax credit, one of her signature projects...

...On the invitee list, “Ivanka Kushner” again appears to not have a White House email address, while others do....

...The email tranche was obtained via Freedom of Information Act request by the nonprofit American Oversight. “After Ivanka Trump was exposed using a personal email account for government business, the White House assured the American people that the use was rare and limited to a short period of time before she officially started on staff," the organization's director, Austin Evers, said. "The facts, however, show us that the Trump administration has misled the public yet again. The hypocrisy of Ivanka Trump and her father’s administration should be surprising, but now sadly comes as no shock after months of evasive and shifting answers from the White House."...

...Ivanka Trump and Kushner’s use of private email accounts for White House business has been previously reported by Newsweek and others. They are believed to have used at least three private accounts. The White House in October announced it was launching an investigation into the use of private accounts for official business.

Representative Elijah  Cummings, minority chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, requested on Thursday a vote on whether to subpoena the White House over the private emails. The subpoena had been held pending the White House internal review of the private emails, but, Cumming said in a statement, “we have received no date certain and no commitment for all the information we are seeking.”

Republicans voted it down....

The facts of the matter is that the Republican majority in the House and Senate has been covering for the Trump White House. They have obstructed any investigation to ILLEGAL use of private emails.

Basically, Trump's attitude is, "Do as I say, not as I do."

September 25, 2018
By Matt Apuzzo and Maggie Haberman

"Six White House Advisors used private emails." (click here)

The disclosures came a day after news surfaced that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, used a private email account to send or receive about 100 work-related emails during the administration’s first seven months. But Mr. Kushner was not alone. Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief White House strategist, and Reince Priebus, the former chief of staff, also occasionally used private email addresses. Other advisers, including Gary D. Cohn and Stephen Miller, sent or received at least a few emails on personal accounts, officials said.

Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, who is married to Mr. Kushner, used a private account when she acted as an unpaid adviser in the first months of the administration, Newsweek reported Monday....

This isn't just politics as the Republicans like to portray it. This is about criminal activity. There were and are sanctions against Russia, it was illegal to have ANY relationship with Russian banks and Russian business or government organizations due to the Russian invasion into Ukraine and the BREAKING OF A TREATY.

EITHER WE ARE A COUNTRY OF LAWS OR WE ARE A BANANA REPUBLIC and any oppositional party will never be able to govern in the USA again.

"...such a request for further investigation is unlikely to proceed as long as the Republicans hold the majority..."

Peas and Carrot are to be pardoned at the White House.

It is a pretty big deal for all the folks involved in bringing the turkeys to Washington, DC. There are special preparations to get the birds ready and families come to DC with the birds for the excitement surrounding them. These aren't just random birds from a farm. Interesting.

Projected sea level rise: 3.7 to 6.1 feet by 2100. The predictions of it effecting national security has gone on for years now.

It is time the USA government get serious about the Climate Crisis. Enough of the denial, the Climate Crisis is killing Americans and placing the country's national security at risk.

June 21, 2018
By Lauren Hamer

Rising seas (click here) don’t just put your city in jeopardy, they also threaten the nation’s security. A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) found many of America’s most influential military bases are at risk should the ocean water rise even a few feet higher. Submarines, research centers, entire fleets of aircraft and rescue equipment — they’re all exposed to harmful flooding. Ranked by potential danger, here are 16 major national defense centers that could go underwater soon than you think.

Though Florida is home to 21 military installations, a handful of these bases are close to the coast and listed as vulnerable to the impact of rising seas. Eglin Air Force Base spans 464,000 acres across three counties in the Florida Panhandle. It supports and conducts research on weapons systems, representing every branch of the military. The installation is also home to a Special Forces Group assigned to protect more than 30 countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

By 2070, this flooding could affect nearly all of the barrier island facilities within the base. In this scenario, much of the grounds would be deemed a tidal zone rather than useable land....

July 26, 2016
By Meghann Myers

Rising oceans will swallow parts (click here) of the world's biggest naval base by the end of the century, according to experts who warn that it will take billions of dollars in upgrades to prepare these facilities.

Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia and 17 other U.S. military installations sitting on waterfront property are looking at hundreds of floods a year and in some cases could be mostly submerged by 2100, according to a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Based on these calculations, the report says a three-foot sea level rise would threaten 128 U.S. military bases, valued at roughly $100 billion.

Nine of those bases are major hubs for the Navy: In addition to Norfolk, flooding threatens Naval Station Mayport, Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia and the Naval Academy in Maryland, where 2003's Hurricane Isabel flooded classrooms, dormitories and athletic facilities. 

It's not just the Navy. Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island is at risk of being completely underwater. All told, three Marine Corps installations, two joint bases, an Air Force base and a Coast Guard Station are also at risk of daily flooding, the report said....

Steve Bannon, a self-avowed Leninist, is an issue of national security.

29 January 2017
By Phillip Rucker and David 

...Counselling Trump (click here) in the effort will be Stephen Bannon, the White House chief strategist whose influence inside the administration is expanding far beyond politics. In an executive order, Trump reorganised the National Security Council to, along with other changes, give Bannon a regular seat on the principals committee - the meetings of the most senior national security officials, including the secretaries of defence and state....

Bannon has had security clearance at the highest levels of the USA government. Not only that, but, he came to any political campaigns with a full set of tools, including Cambridge Analytica and Breitbart. Bannon is a problem for democracy.

November 17, 2018
By Jane Mayer

For two years, (click here) observers have speculated that the June, 2016, Brexit campaign in the U.K. served as a petri dish for Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign in the United States. Now there is new evidence that it did. Newly surfaced e-mails show that the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Cambridge Analytica, the Big Data company that he worked for at the time, were simultaneously incubating both nationalist political movements in 2015.

Emma Briant, an academic expert on disinformation at George Washington University, has unearthed new e-mails that appear to reveal the earliest documented role played by Bannon in Brexit. The e-mails, which date back to October of 2015, show that Bannon, who was then the vice-president of Cambridge Analytica, an American firm largely owned by the U.S. hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, was in the loop on discussions taking place at the time between his company and the leaders of Leave.EU, a far-right nationalist organization. The following month, Leave.EU publicly launched a campaign aimed at convincing British voters to support a referendum in favor of exiting the European Union. The U.K. narrowly voted for the so-called Brexit in June, 2016. The tumultuous fallout has roiled the U.K. ever since, threatening the government of the Conservative Prime Minister, Theresa May.

Bannon did not respond to requests for comment. But his name and private e-mail address appear on the chain of three e-mails in October, 2015, between Brittany Kaiser, the director of program development at Cambridge Analytica, and Arron Banks, who headed the Leave.EU campaign and referred to himself in the title of his memoir as one of “The Bad Boys of Brexit.” Banks could not be reached for comment regarding the e-mails, which were first published Saturday by the British Web site open Democracy....

April 25, 2018
By Kelly Cohen

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie (click here) told Democrats on the House Judiciary and House Oversight and Government Reform committees that Steve Bannon directed staff to test messaging in 2014 about Russian president Vladmir Putin and Russian expansion in Eastern Europe.

Wylie said it was unusual because it was the only foreign leader they tested.

“I can’t explain why it was that they picked Vladmir Putin to talk about in focus groups or to do message testing or to do models on, and why that would be useful to Steve Bannon,” he told Democrats in interviews on Capitol Hill this week. “But what I can say is that they were also testing images of Vladimir Putin and asking questions about Russian expansion in Eastern Europe.”

Cambridge Analytica worked for President Trump’s 2016 campaign, and Bannon was vice president of the board of the data analytics firm beginning in 2014. Bannon joined Trump’s campaign team in August 2016.

Wylie — who left Cambridge Analytica in 2014 — revealed to the Observer last month how Cambridge Analytica improperly took and used the personal information of more than 50 million Facebook users ahead of the 2016 presidential election.....

The detained children at the US Border is the size of a small town.

The security of the children are important, but, sufficient support in processing the children to safe homes is important as well. There has been scattered reporting about children that have been able to run away from the detention facilities.

There are now thousands of people at the Mexican border seeking asylum and that only adds to the backlog of the background checks. There needs to be a more expedient solution to these children while their safety is assured. 

November 19, 2018
By Chris Baynes

A record number of children from overseas (click here) are in US government custody as Donald Trump's administration continues to enforce hardline immigration policies.

More than 14,000 unaccompanied migrant children were being held in detention facilities this week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said. The figure tops a record set two months ago.

The rise, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, is thought to be largely due to increased background checks on adults who come forward to take children into care....

"Morning Papers"

The Rooster

"Okeydoke"

Donald Trump is developing a pattern of disregarding deaths of Americans at the hand of governments if it is not convenient for Trump's agenda.

In the case of Otto Warmbier, his body came home. But, Trump has never carried consequences forward for the death of a young man who was in North Korea as a student. I think the Khashoggi murder is more heinous than that of Warmbier. The results of the investigation by the CIA into the Khashoggi murder is important and should be thorough. The US Congress has a responsibility in identifying this second death at the hand of a foreign government while Trump is President. This is beginning to be a pattern and Americans abroad need to assess their safety.

President Trump mistakenly thinks cooperation in some ways means there is a good relationship with other countries. The example that comes to mind is the return of bodies in storage in North Korea since the Korean War. That is admirable, however, it is also a form of pablum to satisfy a presidential political agenda that does not solidify stronger concessions in regard to denuclearization. 

That placating is seen again with the murder of Khashoggi. The murder was heinous and the CIA is saying Saudi Arabia's MBS is involved in this American death. President Trump, in the beginning of the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, was trying to say he was not an American. There are problems in that the President is not interested in taking a sincere interest in protecting Americans abroad. The peace process engaged between the two Koreas is important, but, the safety of Americans cannot be compromised as negotiations proceed.

April 26, 2018
By Mark Landler

Washington — The parents of Otto F. Warmbier, (click here) the Cincinnati college student who died after suffering a severe brain injury during 17 months in custody in Pyongyang, sued North Korea on Thursday, alleging that it kidnapped, tortured and murdered their son.

The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, throws a harsh spotlight on North Korea’s human-rights abuses weeks before President Trump is scheduled to meet with the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un. It also comes as the Trump administration is trying to win the release of three other Americans currently held there.

Fred and Cindy Warmbier, Otto Warmbier’s parents, contend that North Korea used their son as a pawn in a confrontation with the United States over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. They are claiming damages to be decided by the court.

“North Korea has repeatedly lied about the causes of Otto’s condition and refuses to acknowledge its abhorrent actions,” the 22-page complaint said. “In fact, North Korea, which is a rogue regime, took Otto hostage for its own wrongful ends and brutally tortured and murdered him.”

These deaths will not go away, nor will the people deeply effected by them. President Trump needs to end his cowering and demand respect for Americans abroad.

October 18, 2018
By Bethan McKernan and Julian Borger

Amidst international scorn (click here) for Saudi Arabia’s official explanation of the death of Jamal Khashoggi, friends and colleagues of the reporter on Saturday resumed their vigil outside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was killed two weeks ago.

They were there to mourn his death and demand “true justice”.

In the US, Saudi Arabia’s major ally, the Trump administration remained cautiously supportive of Riyadh. But pressure was building. Bob Corker, chair of the powerful Senate foreign relations committee, doubted the Saudi version of events and said the US “must make its own independent, credible determination of responsibility for Khashoggi’s murder”.

After more than two weeks of stubborn denials from Saudi Arabia that it had anything to do with Khashoggi’s disappearance, statements carried on the state news agency in the early hours of Saturday acknowledged his death – the result, it said, of a “fistfight” inside the consulate on 2 October....

"Good Night, Moon"

The waxing gibbous

10.5 day old moon

81.1 percent lit

Speaking of interstellar space, how about a refresher on what Earth has sent in the direction of no man's land.


December 1, 2017
By Mike Wall

...As Barber's words suggest, (click here) the mission team didn’t do this out of idle curiosity. Voyager 1 — which in August 2012 became the first human-made object ever to enter interstellar space — has long been using its standard attitude-control thrusters to orient itself into the proper position to communicate with Earth. But the performance of these thrusters has been flagging for at least three years, so mission team members wanted to find an alternative option....

Now, Voyager 1's sibling is leaving home, too.

Just as a point of interest, the interstellar object that passed through our solar system last year has an uncanny resemblance to the foreign probe in Star Trek 4, The Voyage Home (click here) about the whales. Just sayin'.


November 15, 2018
By Meghan Bartels

Going, going (click here) — nope, it's still just going, NASA says of its Voyager 2 probe, which the agency realized was approaching the edge of the solar system back in early October.

In a statement released yesterday (Nov. 14), NASA shared additional data from the probe that gives engineers a sense of where the spacecraft currently is in relation to the solar system.

The Voyager 2 probe, which launched in 1977, swung past the gas giants of our solar system, making this spacecraft the only device to gather detailed data about Uranus and Neptune. Then, its mission complete, Voyager 2 barrelled on, out toward the edge of our solar system....